Does hanging shiny things help?

[ChickPrincess]

I thought I remember reading or hearing that hanging shiny things, like CD's, in a tree will help scare away predatory birds. T or F?

 

[sourland]

Some say that it works. I have not found it to be so.

 

[Sylvestor12]

false works for a day then goes to the way it was

 

[ChickPrincess]

Thanks. Guess I won't be hanging any more silver ribbon in our tree! LOL

 

[7L Farm]

Best advice is SSS. I've tried fake crows, fake owls like mentioned last for about 10 minutes.

 

[centrarchid]

Do you know what kind of hawk is harvesting your birds?

 

[ChickPrincess]

Knocking on wood... we haven't had trouble with hawks yet. I'm just trying to prevent it from the start. We have quite a few red tail hawks around our area. I was hoping that shining, flashy things might keep them at a distance.

 

[Mattemma]

I think maybe the red mylar works better.Regardless,it does look pretty

 

[Oregon Blues]

I suspect that what happens is this: the majority of hawks do not kill chickens. Someone sees hawks, puts a lot of shiny stuff out, and the hawks don't kill their chickens. So they think it was the shiny stuff and not the fact that those hawks would not have killed the chickens in the first place. Then they spread the word that shiny stuff keeps the hawks away fro the chickens.

I haven't heard a lot of testimonials from people who were routinely losing birds to hawks (and proof it was hawks), then put up the shiny stuff and did nothing else, and the hawk attacks stopped.

What works is keeping your chickens in a pen with a cover. If you don't want to do that, having lots of good cover also helps a bit.

 

[speckledhen]

I thought I remember reading or hearing that hanging shiny things, like CD's, in a tree will help scare away predatory birds. T or F?

It was never meant to scare them away and doesn't. It's meant to throw off their dive into the pens, by throwing reflections, plus the crisscrossed lines that the CDs dangle from to twist and turn don't give them much room to dive safely.

It worked for us for years, though the main pen is now way too large to do that anymore and when they free range, I depend on my alert roosters to warn the flock against hawk attack.